How the Russian Intelligence Mind-Set Differs from America's

PARIS -- A Cold War is purely an intelligence war. If you go on a Ukrainian geopolitical bender in front of a former KGB chief like Russian President Vladimir Putin without having a firm grasp of the opposition's mind-set, you risk launching yourself into a wall like some kind of drunken frat bro on a Slip 'n Slide.

Here are a few handy tips for understanding the Russian intelligence modus operandi and how it differs from America's.

HUMINT vs. OSINT: Russia has higher standards and capacity for espionage and intelligence operations than the West, placing a greater value on reliable human intelligence (HUMINT) than on the collection and analysis of information derived from open sources (OSINT). In other words, the Russians don't believe that sitting around Googling things all day is the epitome of intelligence work. They want information "procured by undercover agents and secret informants in defiance of the laws of the foreign country in which they operate," as one former Soviet intelligence insider put it.

Unlike the U.S., Russia and its key ally, China, consider every expat to be a human intelligence asset (or "cutout," as they're called in the business). Granted, open-source information can be useful in the hands of an exceptional operational analyst who has the experience, knowledge and top-tier contacts needed to reliably connect disparate points not previously connected, but this describes an overlapping of CIA operational and analytical roles that doesn't exist in the real world. To wit, a former CIA senior official told the Los Angeles Times last year that the agency's $3 billion program for these kinds of non-official cover (NOC) intelligence officers was a "colossal flop," citing "inexperience, bureaucratic hurdles, lack of language skills and other problems."

Permanent Networks Over Ad-Hoc Networks: Regardless of whether the focus is on peacetime political intelligence or the military intelligence that takes center stage when conflict breaks out, the Russian source network is the same, and every citizen or expat is a potential asset. By contrast, in times of conflict and unrest, the U.S. is largely dependent on covertly funded ad-hoc surges -- groups conspicuous by their very presence, with specific missions to disrupt or subvert opposition activities, or to provide mission-specific local intelligence.

Much has been made of the U.S. being blindsided by Russia's movements onto Russian military bases in Crimea in the fallout from the coup d'état in Kiev, and how the West's lack of intelligence in the Crimea region must have resulted from a failure to pick up chatter from official communication channels. Hardly. More like a colossal failure to put down the techie toys and physically infiltrate key Russian networks in the region.

Long-Term vs. Short-Term Economic Warfare: America is busy playing economic-sanction footsie, even to the point of shooting its own footsies by sanctioning Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian official directly involved in the Pentagon's own space program. U.S. officials developed geographic tunnel vision as soon as the Ukrainian conflict started, while Putin remains focused on long-term economic allegiances outside of the conflict zone to solidify foreign trade.

U.S. ally Japan is planning an underwater gas pipeline with Russia as a key part of its post-Fukushima energy strategy. An International Atomic Energy Agency report identifies Japan-Russia cooperation as a framework for greater economic integration on matters like East Asian energy security and even the interconnection of infrastructure such as pipelines and power grids.

The IAEA projects that China's natural gas demand will increase five-fold by 2035, and that Russia's fossil fuel exports to China will increase from 2 percent of Russia's total fuel exports to 20 percent by 2035, while fuel exports to Europe will drop from 61 percent of Russia's total to 48 percent.

Meanwhile, Russia's co-financing of infrastructure projects across Africa facilitates access to (and control over) the African natural-resource market and a possible future competitor. Iranian and Russian officials met In Tehran last week to discuss energy and infrastructure deals.

Kick in Russia's front door, and it has a dozen back exits from which to choose.

Exploiting Current Weaknesses over Creating New Messaging: Not long ago, the Obama administration was promoting the now-infamous "Russian reset," and Obama was caught telling Russian Prime Minister and Putin sidekick Dmitri Medvedev that he'd have more flexibility to negotiate on missile defense after his re-election. Now, Obama is attempting to convince the world that Russia is the bad guy in Ukraine. Try explaining that to a generation of Millennials who have only ever known bad guys with backpack bombs.

Russian spin, meanwhile, has focused on exploiting public distrust of Obama specifically and of the U.S. government more generally, leveraging examples of perceived American screw-ups. Now that's the kind of spin that everyone from grandma to unemployed grandkid can appreciate, regardless of who's saying it.

Unless the U.S. gets a better understanding of its opponent, this particular intelligence war could have a much different result than the last one between the American and Russian spheres.

What?! No mention of the former KGB “modelling agency” that trained hot women to sleep with NATO officers and get secrets that way?! This article is lacking until we see some of those beauties! (Word is FSB still recruits females from poor regions to solicit information of NATO officers).

I just this month finally got my Master's Degree in National Security Affairs with a concentration in Homeland Security. A huge portion of my degree is in Intelligence Analysis and distribution. I sent this to several of my professors, one of which is a recently retired FBI agent who used to run the Behavior Analysis Unit (See the TV show Criminal Minds? Those folks. For the record he says the show is a joke and there is no JET. DANG!) and has done extensive work with the IC (Intelligence Community). I have a tiny bit of insight into the mind of the Russian. Not only was my "war" the previous Cold War, but my late father was born and raised in Russia. I myself am busily learning the language. Rosetta Stone, you know.

This is largely a fiction in today's world. Such so-called "Honey Traps" may have worked during the height of the cold war in the 1950's but as the sexual revolution progressed and matured the concept became irrelevant.

It hardly ever worked on agents and diplomats in Europe. The Europeans having such a progressive attitude on sex anyway. Nobody cares what you do in this arena.

Drugs? PAH. Even when I was in Europe for Operation REFORGER back in 1980, the Dutch had a park in the center of Amsterdam called Needle Park, where the Heroin addicts would gather to get their free clean hypodermics each day. The city would cruise by in the pre-dawn hours to pick up the bodies of the OD's before the tourists could see them. I know because we had to go to Amsterdam to pick up our battalion vehicles for the exercise and it was quite illuminating to see all of this.

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